Stardust Status Report

January 4, 2002

There were three Deep Space Network tracking passes in the past week, and
all subsystems are normal. Now that Stardust has left solar conjuction and
is no longer within 3 degrees of the Sun, its command loss timer was lowered
back to 17 days.

Stardust successfully performed an 180-degree yaw maneuver before, during
and after its time close to the Sun. During the conjunction, the
spacecraft passed behind the Sun, and from the spacecraft's point of view
the Sun moved from the -X (left-hand, if you were looking at the
spacecraft) side of the spacecraft to the +X (right-hand) side. However,
since the attitude subsystem had been commanded to keep the Sun on the -X
side, the on-board software made the spacecraft slowly perform an
180-degree roll to keep the Sun on the proper side. The spacecraft is
commanded to keep the Sun on the -X side to eliminate any potential solar
array shadowing from the Whipple shield.

Preparations continue for Deep Space Maneuver 2, slated for January
18. The maneuver will be approximately 3 meters per second (8.5 miles per
hour.)

For more information on the Stardust mission - the first ever
comet sample return mission - please visit the Stardust home page: